by Rick Norwood
Rick Norwood is a mathematician who moonlights reviewing movies and television for www.Sf Site.com and editing classic comic strips (including Flash Gordon by Harry Harrison) for Comics Revue magazine. This story is his first for F&SF.
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Many thousands of years before the flood, in a small fishing village by the sea, there lived two brothers, twins, Tiger and Shallow by name, and they were as different as night and day. Tiger was dark and wild, with curly black hair and a kind heart. Even as a small child, if he had two honeycakes, he would give them both away to a stranger. But if someone did him a wrong, he would lash out in a blind rage, and sometimes cause more harm than he intended. Shallow was pale and humorless, with long blond hair and cold, blue eyes. He always demanded his due and was a shrewd trader. But he was also a hard worker and he always kept his word.
From the time they were old enough to wrestle, rolling on the floor as naked babes, the two brothers fought. Older, they spent many hours seeing who could run the fastest or climb the highest or catch the biggest fish.
Their father was a fisherman, like his father’s fathers before him, but both Tiger and Shallow hungered for the old strong magic and the favor of the gods. When they were young men, Tiger set sail for the deepest sea, where the water was so dark a blue that it did not reflect the sun. There he cast a net, the strongest net ever made by man, and drew up from the depths of Ocean the oldest, wisest fish that swims, a fish that had traveled the length of Ocean seven times, and seven times returned. This fish was as large as a man, and its name was Silver. Tiger drew Silver into the undecked boat and wrestled it to the bottom and pinned it there. “If you share your wisdom, I will set you free,” Tiger said, and Silver told Tiger the secrets of the old strong magic.
Shallow also set sail in a boat, and crossed the seas to the Cinnamon Isles, where he sat by the nest of the young Phoenix. He sat so long and so quietly and patiently that after much time had passed Phoenix asked him what he wanted and Shallow said, “Teach me the old strong magic.” And Phoenix did.
After they returned home, Tiger and Shallow no longer had to fish or to hunt, for they knew the words to call up fish from the sea and to call birds down from the sky, but they were still rivals in all things. Thanks to Tiger’s generosity, the little fishing village never went hungry and thanks to Shallow’s sharp trading, it became rich.
One bright morning, when the red sun rippled the air above the tall yellow grass, Tiger said to Shallow, “Brother, have you ever tasted snow?”
“I have heard tell of snow, but never have I tasted it,” Shallow answered.
“Brother, my far seeing has seen snow, white on the mountains to the north. Will you race me there? The winner will be whoever first tastes snow.”
“I will race you, brother, under one condition,” said Shallow. “From sunup to sundown we race. But when night falls, we stop, and see what ease is to be had in whatever place we find ourselves.”
“Done,” said Tiger. And without another word the two brothers left behind the village of their father’s fathers, left behind their wives and children, and began to run. At first they ran along animal trails, where the tall grass was broken down, running side by side in the glory of the morning. Then Tiger pulled ahead, and left Shallow far behind. Shallow let him. He knew that his brother would tire in the heat of the day. Besides, Shallow had in mind a trick.
At noon, the sweat glistening on his dark skin, Tiger was still running without pause, when an antelope bounded past him through the tall grass. With his inner eye, Tiger saw at once that the antelope was Shallow, and transformed himself into an antelope. But Shallow now had the lead, and still held the lead when night fell.
The two brothers found themselves not far from a town built of mud houses. They took once again their human forms and Shallow said, “Let us go into the town, and see what there is to see.”
Tiger and Shallow went into the village, found a bar, and ordered beer. (Even before the flood there were bars where men could gather to drink.) The brothers listened to the villagers talk—the accents were strange, but the old strong magic gave the brothers the power to understand all forms of speech, not only human speech but the speech of animals and gods.
The town was abuzz with fear and excitement. For the last three nights, a winged lion had prowled the darkness outside of town, and last night it carried off a child of the village. There was much talk of driving the winged lion away with torches, or building a wall around the town for protection, but nothing had been done.
As the brothers were leaving the bar, a small boy just outside the door held out his cupped hands. “The gods reward those who are generous to the poor,” the boy said. Shallow walked on without even a glance at the boy, but Tiger paused.
Tiger said to the boy, “Go, get dust from the ground and a little water from the well, and make a loaf of bread out of mud.” The boy ran to do as he was told. When he returned, Tiger took the loaf made of mud in his hands, and when he handed it back to the boy it was soft, warm bread, with a crunchy brown crust. The boy devoured it in less time than it takes to tell.
“Boy,” said Tiger. “Are you brave?”
“I am the bravest of boys,” said the boy.
“Would you like to help rid your town of the winged lion that eats children?”
“The winged lion ate my little sister last night. My mother weeps and wails and casts dust in her hair. I will do whatever you ask.”
“Come with me,” Tiger said.
They walked to the darkness outside the town. “You stay here. I will protect you,” said Tiger. Then he transformed himself into a stone, so the winged lion would not be frightened, and would come.
The boy wiggled his foot at the darkness, to show that he was not afraid.
Soon, crouching low to the ground, the winged lion crept toward the boy. It was dark, but Tiger could see in the dark. He returned to human form and cried, “Run, boy.”
The boy ran. The lion sprang. Tiger stood in the lion’s path, and hit the lion in the face with his fist. The lion spread its wings and soared up into the air. Tiger could see its outline black against the stars. The lion folded its wings and plummeted down on Tiger. When the lion was almost upon him, claws outstretched, Tiger transformed himself into a lance, which pierced the lion’s heart.
The boy watched, wide eyed, as the lance rose out of the body of the dead lion and took the form of a man. “Go,” said Tiger, “and tell your mother that the winged lion is dead. I will follow.”
Tiger followed the boy to the mud house where he lived, and the boy told his mother and father what Tiger had done. The family invited Tiger to stay the night and sleep by the hearth, though it saddened them that they had no food to offer him. But Tiger provided a feast for the whole family and, late that night, after everyone else was asleep, the boy’s older sister came to Tiger to warm his dreams.
Shallow, meanwhile, visited a temple prostitute and turned a stone into gold to pay for food and drink and her services for the night.
The next morning, when Tiger awoke, the sun was already in the sky. He thanked the family for their hospitality, and left the older sister with a smile and a caress to remember him by. He knew that Shallow would have resumed the race as soon as the edge of the sun was seen on the horizon, and so he lost no time. As soon as he was out of sight of the town of mud huts, he transformed himself into a gazelle and bounded across the open plain.
All day the two brothers raced across the wide land.
Night found Shallow between two cities and so, in order to keep his word, Shallow returned to the city he had passed an hour earlier.
Tiger reached the outskirts of that same city at sunset, and found a large caravansary that offered food, drink, and lodging.
The taproom was crowded both with travelers and with local bully boys. Whores and pickpockets were working the crowd, and a flute player and a drummer could barely make themselves heard over the din.
Tiger drank heavily, and began to brag, and when a local tough doubted his word, he broke the man’s jaw. All of the other locals leaped into the fray and Tiger easily beat them all, without need of magic. In the joy of drunken combat he did rather more damage than he intended, but as best as he could remember, as he nursed his sore head before sunup the next morning, he had not killed anybody.
In penance for the damage he had caused the previous night, he did not use magic to cure his hangover, but jogged doggedly northward through early morning streets.
Meanwhile, Shallow had spent the evening gambling, in the back room of a small tavern on the north side of the city. The game he joined consisted of casting goat’s knuckles, whose six sides were each marked with a kabalistic sign. The rules were complicated, as both the number of dice rolled and the value of each combination varied according to the previous roll, but Shallow easily mastered the rules. It was an interesting game, but luck was against him, and he did not deign to use magic when gambling—it would have taken all the sport out of it. In the small hours of the morning, he lost the last of his gold.
Listening to the conversation of the local men, Shallow gathered that the fortunes of this city were in a decline, and that the city to the north was stealing away all of their business with luxury inns, large places of worship for every religion under the sun, and temple prostitutes who were both beautiful and skilled.
Shallow asked, “Will you all agree to return the gold I lost, if I tell you how to restore the prosperity of your city?”
One of the older men remarked, “Advice is easy to give, not always worth listening to, seldom worth paying for.”
“Suppose I leave that up to you,” Shallow said. “You return my gold only if you find my advice worthwhile.”
Several men nodded, looking slyly at one another. How could they lose?
Shallow thought in silence for a short time, while the others watched him with growing interest. Finally, he asked, “What is the gambling like in the city to the north?”
“They don’t gamble,” said one man. “Against their religion.”
“They don’t gamble!” cried Shallow. “Well, then, there is the answer to all of your problems. Build a great gambling palace, with beautiful girls, plenty to drink, and games of every kind. Reserve the game we’ve been playing for the serious gambler. Most of your games should be very simple, with very high stakes. Here’s one.”
Shallow described a game where, at each round, players must either double their bet or drop out. The stakes quickly grew to astronomical size. He outlined other games where the stakes were low, the play rapid, the rules simple and almost, but not quite, fair. The more he talked, the more the men were caught up in his glowing description of a gaming city that would draw caravans from miles around. When he finished, they all eagerly pushed back toward him the gold they had won.
Shallow raised both hands, palms outward. “You keep the gold. It is my investment in the future of your city. Use it to begin work on your gambling house. Repay me with interest, when next I pass this way.”
For what was left of the night, Shallow slept deeply, and dreamed. In his dream, he was in a darkened room surrounded by glowing eyes, with gold irises and pupils like black pits. The eyes swirled and danced around him. When he tried to raise his arms, they felt too heavy to lift, and when he tried to speak, only a dry croak came from his throat.
He woke shortly before dawn. His dream quickly faded from his memory, but a vague uneasiness remained. When he broke bread, it seemed strangely tasteless and unappetizing. Just as he was leaving the city, he sensed his brother not far away. He joined him, and jogged alongside him. His brother’s face had a large, purple bruise, and his expression was uncommonly glum, but Shallow knew better than to ask questions. Instead, he said, “Brother, we will reach the mountaintops late today or early tomorrow. I propose we run this last lap in human form. Are you willing to match your natural speed and endurance against mine?”
“Done,” was all Tiger said.
The two men ran side by side for a while, and then Shallow began to pull ahead. His long, lean body was more suited to running than Tiger’s heavy muscles and barrel chest. Tiger’s lungs worked like bellows, drawing in great quantities of air. His feet pounded the dusty earth. But Shallow seemed to fly, his feet barely touching the ground as he ran, and Tiger, head throbbing, was unable to close the distance between them.
Gradually, as the sun rose to zenith and cities, towns, and villages, farms and fields fell behind, Shallow’s lead grew greater and greater, until Tiger could no longer see his brother without using farsight.
The land gradually changed from fertile land to dry, barren hills. In place of a blue sky, in which floated cloud castles, the sky turned colorless and empty. The sun beat down and sweat ran from Tiger’s brow and glistened on his arms and legs. Still he ran, without stopping, without slowing, pushing his powerful body to the limits of its endurance.
Far ahead, Shallow ran smoothly and tirelessly. All day he had run, his mind serene and without thought, sometimes following roads worn down by the feet of men, at other times following animal trails or no trail at all. As he climbed higher and higher, he turned aside at any sign of man. He had never before traveled this far north, but he had heard of the mountain tribes, proverbially clannish and warlike.
As he ran up the slope of a long, brown hill, a small dell came suddenly into view, where three very old men sat cross legged, wearing nothing but breech cloths. The bones of their elbows and knees were large, their arms and legs skinny, their bellies fat, their necks scrawny, their turned-up feet calloused, their heads bald. Shallow stopped a respectful distance away from them. When they took no notice of him, he began to back away.
“Shallow.” A voice spoke his name, yet no man’s lips moved.
“Shallow,” a second voice said, “What right have you to be so proud?”
“Shallow,” said a third voice, “Do you know who we are?”
“I do not know who you are, but I have no quarrel with you,” Shallow said.
“We hate you and your brother. We loathe and despise you. We mean to destroy you.” Three voices spoke in chorus.
Shallow reached deep into the old strong magic and spoke but a single word, “Forget.”
Cackles of laughter hung in the air. The lips of the three old men still had not moved.
“The old strong magic does not work on us.”
“We created the old strong magic.”
“We are the Old Dark Gods.”
Shallow said, “What do you want?”
“We never asked much from men.”
“We asked that men fear us.”
“We asked that men never presume to try to be our equals.”
Shallow bent and lifted a huge boulder over his head, and dashed it down upon the Old Dark Gods. The boulder shattered. A black whirlwind appeared and carried the fragments of boulder away. The Old Dark Gods had not moved.
“What do you want!” cried Shallow.
“We want to humble you and your brother.”
“We want men to understand that men are men and gods are gods.”
“We want you to crawl.”
As one, the three old men rose into the air. They spread their fingers and toes, and their eyes grew large. From the air above their heads came a Word. Shallow found himself looking up at them through strange eyes. They were giants. The pebbles over which he scurried were like mountains.
“Crawl on the earth.”
“As a dung beetle.”
“For the rest of your days.”
As Shallow crawled helplessly in the dust, the three old men sat down cross-legged and waited.
Only a few miles away, Tiger, his mind deadened with fatigue, ran on, unaware of the fate that had befallen his brother. On and on heavily he jogged, up that long, slow brown hill. When he reached the little hidden dell, he saw the three old men. He saw the dung beetle crawling in the dust and his inner eye recognized his brother. Recognizing his brother, he knew at once that the three old men were the Old Dark Gods. Only the Old Dark Gods could have done this to Shallow.
Without waiting for the three old men to speak, Tiger cried out. “Young Bright Gods, I call on you. In the name of Marduk, in the name of Asher, in the name of Ishar, in the name of Tiamat, in the name of Gog, in the name of Magog, in the name of Leviathan, I call on you. I pledge my devotion, my worship, my sacrifice, my praise, and the praise of my children, the praise of my brother, and the praise of my brother’s children, from generation to generation, world without end.”
A bright light filled the little dell on the mountainside. When he could see again, Tiger saw that the three old men were gone. Shallow stood there in human form.
The brothers, rivals without equal among men, understood one another too well for speech. What they needed was to run, and run they did, climbing ever higher, from the foothills into the mountains. As they pushed their way upward, step by step, bodies leaning forward at almost the same angle as the steep mountainside, they passed out of the barren land and into a forest. Giant oaks spread their roots over moss-covered boulders. Higher still they climbed, and the oaks gave way to spruce and fir. The ground was covered with a carpet of brown needles and the brothers’ deep breaths drew in the aroma. The air under the trees darkened. Shoulder to shoulder they climbed, neither able to push himself ahead of the other.
They came to a meadow of thick, green grass, on the far side a white snow bank. The sun, which hung in the west like a ripe plum, cast blue shadows on the snow. Tiger and Shallow pushed themselves to one final burst of speed. Side by side they reached the snow bank, scooped snow up in an outstretched hand, and filled their mouths with cold white stuff.
Then they laughed and Tiger said to Shallow, “Race you back!”
It came to the minds of both young men that it was downhill all the way and so they transformed themselves into rivers and raced back to the sea.
The melting snow followed the paths they left behind them and made two rivers, which are named after the two brothers to this very day.